Retirees out of love with markets

The latest figures show consumer confidence has soured in the face of turbulent financial markets.

The fallout in global shares last week has taken the wind out of the confidence among Australians as they saw their investment and superannuation wealth take a hit, a least on paper.

But economists say little has changed in the economy, and strong business conditions suggest the record number of jobs created in 2017 has further to run.

The National Australia Bank's monthly business survey, released on Tuesday, indicates a solid rate of job creation of around 20,000 per month, which should be enough to put further downward pressure on the unemployment rate in the first six months of this year.

January labour figures are released on Thursday.

Economists are expecting a more modest rise in employment in the month of 15,000 after the upbeat pace that saw a record 403,000 people get a job over 2017.

However, they expect this still could be enough to see the jobless rate tick back down to 5.4 per cent per cent from 5.5 per cent in December and to a five-year low seen in October and November last year.

The monthly Westpac-Melbourne Institute consumer sentiment survey is released on Wednesday.

The weekly ANZ-Roy Morgan confidence index released on Tuesday fell 2.9 per cent following the steep sell-off in global shares last week.